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 thousands of times during the stretch of years, years during which neither he nor Jake had seen the stolid, unfortunate pariah who had grown to be of such importance in their dull lives. Often they talked of him; always there had been messages for them in Angus’s letters—showing that Angus remembered. But they could not imagine Angus to be almost a man—he was still the same to them—unaltered….

“No, Miss,” said Jake, “we can’t do that.”

It was not like Lydia to argue; not by argument did she carry her points, but rather by swift, surprising action. She turned on her heel and hurried up to her room. There she wrote a letter to Angus Burke, a letter which was the first he had ever received from a person of her sex.

“Angus Burke, Esq.,” she wrote formally, “Dear Sir: Mr. Wilkins is very sick. It is typhoid fever, which is very dangerous and he is very delirious all the time. There is not anybody to do his work on the paper and I think it is your ,” she underscored “duty,” “to come home, even if you aren’t through school, and keep the paper going. Yours respectfully, Lydia Canfield.”

She waited to consult nobody. Convinced she was right, she went ahead careless of consequences. Such was her way….